Quality Assurance built a demo environment that became production

“We just need it until SAP is updated.”— IT Service Desk

Reason:

Because Sofia has the only working copy of Stock_list_FIXED.csv. With 141 users and zero documentation.

Built by:

Jens, a key account manager

Build time:

19 minutes

Built with:

a Slack bot doing database writes

Database:

a SOAP service returning XML from 7 years ago

Authentication:

the login page is protected by another login page

Deployment:

hosted in a cloud region nobody intended to use

Responsible:

a contractor invoicing €1074/day through a third party

Documentation:

a README containing 13 broken links

Security situation:

MFA was disabled after somebody lost their phone

Future disaster:

It will become the source of truth in 18 months.

Age: 2.3 years · originally expected to last 3 months · 5 owners so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 823 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 27 users, alive 9x longer than intended, €2k per year.